LSC Cy-Fair holds virtual tour of Israel

Published 11:00 am, Tuesday, April 14, 2015

From left are Elise Sheppard-young adult librarian and professor, Yahael Goldsten-Israeli engineering student, and Niv Prager- member of the Jewish Agency Young Shaliach Program.

From left are Elise Sheppard-young adult librarian and professor, Yahael Goldsten-Israeli engineering student, and Niv Prager- member of the Jewish Agency Young Shaliach Program.

LSC Cy-Fair holds virtual tour of Israel

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“Israel: The Pulse of the Country after the Summer 2014 Gaza War” provided a north to south virtual tour of the country on Wednesday, April 8, at Lone Star College-CyFair.

The topics discussed at the presentation were the current national mood, fighting terrorism, and the diversity of people in the country.

Even though unemployment is low in Israel, the poverty level is about 31 percent. People are required to put down 50 percent of their mortgage. Some of the main election issues are security versus domestic issues. Some, but not all of the big issues include: anti-missile batteries, not allowing Iran to get a nuclear bomb, narrowing the gap between the rich and poor, and electoral reform.

Elise Sheppard, young adult librarian and professor, presented the presentation about her sixth trip to Israel with the Jewish Federation of Greater Houston. She wanted to shed light on the positive aspects of the country.

“I feel that because there are mostly non-Jewish students and community in this area, and they don’t know about Israel or Jews, and they have negative misconceptions about Israel and Jews from the media,” said Sheppard. “So I feel that it is very important for me to share some reality with them, so that they have a better understanding of Jews and Israel.”

Often people have misconceptions of the country. Some people believe it is easy to only see the negative if a person bases all of their information from the media.

“I think misconception is a common problem with Israelis and Americans,” said Niv Prager, a member of the Jewish Agency Young Shaliach Program. “When I ask my friends what they think about Texas, they thought about desert and cowboys. So, it goes for both sides.”

The beauty of places such as Tel Aviv, peacefulness, and diversity amongst Jews and Arabs were some of the first impressions of the professor. Of the 8 million people in the country, 6 million of them are Jewish which is 43 percent of the world’s population.

“I feel that the average media in this country is very anti-Israel. Anti-Israel means anti-Semitic,” said Sheppard. “For some reason the media in this country is skewed against Israel and that is a problem and that is something that I think that Jews and Israel needs to fight against.”

It is apparent that there are issues that have to be resolved, but the virtual tour educated people of conflict and the importance of knowing the country’s beauty and diversity.

“I think the Gaza war is part in all [of] the conflict, but this is not what Israel is about. We are not about conflict,” said Prager. “We are about life. We cherish life. We just want to live our life.”